Sausages

Susan and I moved from London to the US in 1999.  Early on we wondered if there were food items that we would miss, like cheese, bacon, beer and sausages.  We gradually found the equivalent (or arguably better?) over here for most of them but we never got a reliable source of british sausages.  We loved Porkinson's back in Blighty but they don't get across the pond (and are apparently not what they used to be anyway now).  We tried Whole Food's irish bangers and found them to be excellent, but the next two times I bought them, they were far too salty and pretty much inedible.

Fast forward to my recent birthday, when I suggested that Susan get me the makings for sausages (couldn't think of anything else!).  As always she delivered, and how, with grinder and sausage stuffer attachments for our Kitchenaid, a bag of hog casings and Bruce Aidell's book on sausage making!

Most recipes in the book called for both meat and fat, and it seems to be hard to get fat in the stores.  I was thinking chicken and apple from the book because you don't need to add fat, and we both like the Aidell's you can get at the supermarket, but Susan found a british sausage recipe online that uses pork shoulder only.

The other big question was filler.  You might think that only cheap sausages use filler, and the best are meat and spices only, but in fact the filler is essential for good texture and juiciness.  The british sausage recipe called for rusk (a hard biscuit that babies teeth on in the UK), and actually gave a recipe for making it, but I thought I could get the equivalent in the supermarket.

So off to HEB (conveniently close to my local bike shop), where they had boston butts for $1 per pound.  They were a little bigger than I needed (the recipe wants 5lbs) but I thought there would be some trimming to do and it's pretty damn cheap anyway.  Off to the baby food aisle - but no rusks to be had.  Susan had warned me that I might have to go to the drug store for them and Walgreen's is just over the road - but no joy there either.  It was the same in Randalls and I was starting to think I would have to make them when I passed the kosher food and saw matzohs.  They're made with flour and water, no salt or leavening - sounds like rusk to me!

Back home and time to grind up 5lbs of pork.  This turned into quite a chore, because it's a lot of meat and the grinder runs slowly.  It also tends to get choked on connective tissue and that's plentiful in this cut.  Eventually it was done, so back into the freezer to chill again before going through a second time, with a smaller plate.  I mixed up the crushed matzohs with chicken stock and the spices (ginger, nutmeg, mace and fresh sage?) and immediately got the very familiar aroma of Porkinson's!  This was looking promising.

The second grind was much faster.  I mixed up and then it was time to start stuffing.  I had rinsed out the casings already (they are packed in salt, perhaps Whole Foods' problem?), so I selected a likely looking one and slipped it over the horn.  I roped in Susan to hold the sausage as it emerged and off we went.  The biggest problem was keeping the grinder fed, so that it didn't go dry and fill the casing with air, but we worked it out and filled two casings.  The next challenge was linking - I was very concerned that I would split the casing - but it went well, we only had one hole.

sausages!

The proof of the sausage is in the eating.. we decided to eat them with egg, bacon and mushroom, a full british breakfast for dinner.  I fried them in a large skillet and they certainly looked and smelled great, although the meat expanded out of the casings at each end a little.  How did they taste?  Excellent, very authentic flavour, but the texture was a little fine and they could have been juicier.  Next time around, less grinding and more fat.